A Determined Harry Does (ADHD)
by Ash0011
Summary: A chunni that might've read Harry Potter a few years back, maybe, he at least skimmed it, fanfics are close enough, and I think the movies were played in his general vicinity, ends up as Harry Potter. This can only end well (in explosions). SI, Crack, originally from SB
1. Awakening

I awoke to a stairway. This may seem normal, after all death is usually shown as traveling up or down one, but in this case something was off. It might've been how the stairs were above me and I was in a rather small room, or possibly the spiderwebs that were adorning the space.

Deciding I must not be dead somehow, and taking stock of my surroundings, I noticed that everything was still blurry even though I had rubbed my eyes a bit. Ahh well, not like you can go through a near-death experience entirely unscathed, and anyways the rest of my family already had glasses, so this would be nothing too new.

This new state of affairs remained until my still sleepy mind got around to noticing that my body was much too small. As the pieces fell into place all remnants of drowsiness were cast from my mind at speed and I held up a terribly familiar pair of glasses.

The sudden realization that I seemed to be Harry Potter of all characters had my head pushed firmly into the admittedly hard pillow to stifle my cries. I was HARRY POTTER, The-Boy-Who-Hyphens, Slayer of That-One-Guy, holder of nearly as many titles as Professor Headmaster. That thought brought my cries of laughter up short, I already remembered little enough about the series, what if this was a _fanfic _of all things.

In the end it was decided that that mattered little, I was here and the first thing to do was find out how old I was (and thus how much time I had to train unsupervised). To this end my first challenge was The Door. It was a wily opponent however- wait the lock is on the outside… No matter, I am a Wizard. In fact, I am a Harry Potter Wizard, who uses a system of magic more broken than some Worm CYOAs. The Door will bow to my reality-altering might!

After a few minutes (seconds) of staring ineffectually at the lock I was forced to admit that a change of strategy _might_ be needed, maybe. Hmmmm, all the _fanfic_ writers seemed to think that meditation was the way to go. I glance at the "bed" lumpy and pokey as it is and shudder. Nope, not happening, there has to be an easier way. Thinking back to the books most accidental magic takes place because of strong emotion, but that's not all otherwise my outburst with the pillow would've leveled the house. There must be something more…

Another five or so (one) minutes of thinking leads me to an answer, if I remember correctly Tom (the angst-machine, not the barkeep) managed to control accidental magic through an effort of will. If an angsty orphan could do it without even knowing what magic is, this'll be easy. I focus on the emotions I felt upon realizing I had magic and will them to open the door.

Hours (minutes) later I come to the conclusion that taunting murphy is a poor idea, even in the confines of one's own head. Truly The Door is a worthy opponent. It seems the time has come for Drastic Measures. I slump on the "bed" and attempt to clear my mind. You see now that my mind is clear and I'm not thinking of anything I should be able to sense the Chakra Reishi KI Nen Magicules Prana Spirit Mana, wait that's right. This isn't a mana system, it's just magic. But then does that mean I have a core or something, or is it more like Fate with the line-things, or maybe it's a network like Chakra, or maybe- DAMMNIT mind clearing is hard…

An Hour (thirty seconds) later I conclude that this is stupid and there must be a trick to it. Obviously this is one of those things where you have to do the opposite! If my thoughts are chaotic enough I'll be thinking of everything at once, and thinking about everything at once means I'll be thinking about nothing at all! I'm a GENIUS, when I figure out magic the first thing to do is learn lightning for my Evil Laugh just like a mad- science and magic don't mix because of the Anti Tech Aura that's just like- Harry Dresden has some good ideas, I should get a- gun made of- magic -mithril -dwarf -Ring -Fire -WARMTH -WHOLENESSS -POSSIBILITY -LIGHT.

-The world goes two directions -colors bleed to white -my head pounds -I fall -Down -I

I come to on the floor, groaning. That wasn't one of my best ideas, still better than the Everything Dip, though not by much. If this is anything like a hangover I'm not going to want to open my eyes, am I? I sigh and look around the cupboard, still the same place, bit brighter though, at least my- I stop, my eyes are still closed, am I actually…

I move my arm, I See it move. I grab my pillow, I See myself grab it.

WAT, no, wait, my idea worked!? I mean not in the way I intended, unless. I Look inside myself, I appear to be orange with a hint of, is that green? How does that work? Why couldn't it have been Octarine or something, oh well, at least Oreen is alright.

I open my real eyes and sit up. Okay, now how do I do this. Lets look at my glasses aaaand Force Push!

The glasses fail to so much as wobble.

Force Pull! Mage Hand! Accio! Apport! Return! GET. OVER. HERE.

The glasses wobble slightly.

Success! Now I just need to practice and eventually I'll have telekinesis. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Damn, I really need to get on that lightning. How would I do that? Can I forcibly ionize the air, or maybe force a difference in charge, ooh or I can go the Dragonslayer route and eat some lightning. Yesssss, lightning eating is the best one, it even comes with cool fangs and the ability to hurt things by yelling. If I get good enough I'll even be able to turn into-

At this I notice a click as The Door is unlocked and someone starts tapping on it. That's right, Harry has relatives that hate him. This is what's her name, it's a flower, it's pink, Carnation, Aunt Carnation. As always my memory is flawless.

"Wake up, you're helping me with breakfast." Her voice isn't as scratchy as I imagined.

"Of course Aunt Carnation, I'm coming" I answer whilst opening The Door.

Her face isn't as horsey as I imagined either, more nonplussed than anything really. I head off towards the nearest linoleum floor expecting to find the kit- it's a bathroom. I suppose a freshening up is in order anyways. Looking in the mirror I try and estimate my new age, I'm thinking seven or eight which leaves two years to become a telekinetic lightning dragon before Hogwarts.

Following the sound of plates I find the kitchen, the table is set and a walrus appears to be reading the paper at it. I frown, if they had a trained walrus you'd think they wouldn't be so concerned about odd thi- oh, that's uncle whatshisname, Verruca, yes Uncle Verruca. In the kitchen proper half of the sink seems to be taken up by some variety of lutefisk, funny I thought that was more Norwegian not English. Oh well, should be fine if the rest of them are eating it, wouldn't do to make people suspicious.

After helping Aunt Carnation get things cooked and on the table a herd of wilderbeasts seem to thunder down the stairs. Wait, I know this one, it's Dumpling the cousin. I grimace, no, I'm not calling anyone that, I'll just call him little, I glance at him, better make that Big D. At this point a rustling clank can be heard down the hall.

"Get the mail Dudley" Verruca has the oddest nicknames for people, he was calling Carnation Pet earlier too.

"Make Harry do it" I suppose Big D wouldn't want anymore exercise than completely necessary, he seems to be going for a record.

"Get the mail Harry" Odd, I though Verruca always called me 'Boy', I must be in an alternate universe.

I simply nod and go to the mailslot, it'll be good to get into the habit of getting the mail for when my Hogwarts letter comes. I look through the mail to see if one has a date, none seem to but there is one addressed to me. I pause, it seems my letter has come early. With a shrug I shove the letter into my baggy pants before heading back. I'll need to find a way to tell them about this, there was a neighbor that knew about magic, wasn't there? Her name was, it was a fruit, plum? No that's from clue. It was something yellow and orange, shaped like a Science-flask, Figy, Mrs. Figy, that was it.

I hand back the remaining mail and sit down to eat while mulling the problem over, I'll need an excuse to head over to her house as soon as possible. Big D tries to hit me with his stick, and why does he have a stick, a few times but I bat it away distractedly.

After helping with the dishes I announce "I'm heading out to help Mrs. Figy with something, I'll be back in a bit" before darting out the door before objections can be raised.

I congratulate myself on my flawless plan before heading next door and knocking. A small, harried looking man answers.

I blink "is Mrs. Figy here?"

The man blinks back "oh, no, you want number five, this is number six" he says pointing across the street.

"Oh" well this is embarrassing, at least this isn't an AU where she's a man "thank you"

I turn and watch him close the door as I set off, to the correct house this time, and knock once more, startling a glowing cat on the porch.

A slightly glowy woman with excellent mad scientist hair answers the door. "Harry? What are you doing here?"

her voice is very breathy, probably because of radioactive cat hairs.

I hold up the Letter "I just got this and have no idea why"

Her eyes widen "well I'll be, that's a Hogwarts letter, I suppose you would be going this year"

Well darn, ages are harder to estimate than I thought.

She continues "but how'd you know I'd be able to help you?"

I freeze, this is a completely unforeseen turn of events. I can't be outed now, it's time to Kaiser Soze this. I glance around and am met with more radioactive cats.

"Because everyone knows that only magical people keep this many cats"

Brilliant, I've done it again. Truly my bluff skill is maxed out.

She looks suspiciously at me then nods "alright, I suppose you'll want to borrow my owl to send a response, come along and I'll grab a quill."

I follow and open the letter to see if it's different too. Everything seems the same, though half of the books seem to be written under pen-names and they seem to specify a _winter_ cloak.

As Mrs. Figy comes back she asks "Harry, where are your glasses, did something happen to them?"

It was then that I realized my ghost-vision-thing I activated this morning was still a thing, it seemed it allowed me a short range of all-around vision -like a terrible byakugan- and to see glowing magic. Apparently all cats are magic, this comes as no surprise, though suddenly noticing that I see things in stereo does.

"I left them at the house, I should be fine for now, my vision isn't that bad" I lie.

Luckily my vision is only poor at short range, so the magekugan, magkugan? The M-kugan compensates.

Mrs. Figy helps me pen a letter, citing that I will be free tomorrow morning and that I am looking forward to learning magic. Once we send it off I begin considering who will be answering it, in all likelihood it will be the big guy, Hagrid. This is concerning, his mastery of mind magic allowed him to keep Lord Faces out of his head for the entire first year, I must beware of any mind reading from him.

After sending off the letter we talk for a bit over tea, apparently Mrs. Figy is a squib, whatever that is, and I head back to the house. Upon returning I am unceremoniously herded into the cupboard amidst yells about respect and freakishness. It seems offence was taken at my leaving before doing any other chores and I'll be let out tomorrow. Oh well, I pull out a bag of cookies Mrs. Figy gave me and return to trying to levitate things.

Six (two) hours later I have noticed that making things wobble involves sending Oreen strands at the object. Controlling them helps, but it's like trying to grasp something tiny underwater, also the water is full of invisible currents and randomly swaps between the consistency of air and honey. It also seems that the more I understand the Concept of what I try to do, the brighter and bigger the strands are. Trying to focus on nonsensical words like accio does not work as well as focusing on thinking about The Force. This bears further study.

A few minutes (hours) of experimenting later I have figured out the pattern. It seems that magic is about Intent, the better you focus your Intent the easier it is to do things. This can be evidenced by the fact that trying to move something while thinking about moving does little. Thinking about -MOVEMENT -MOTION -**FORCE **dammnit, why with the face, always the face. This means that the pseudo-latin words are supposed to be used to focus Intent and associate with Concepts, being a form of shorthand for them. Focusing on something like Wing-ardium Levi-osa is probably supposed to conjure associations with birds, flight, weightlessness, and levitation simply from drawing those to mind, forming conceptual triggers. Probably why the glowy animal spell is so hard, the association is incomplete so you have to build it yourself.

Hmmm, I wonder if I can do a fireball, I remember attempting that a ridiculous amount of times before this. Let's see, Fire would be; -HEAT -WARMTH -LIGHT -LIFE -DEATH -HOPE -FEAR -CREATION -DESTRUCTION -BALANCE -_**FYRE**_. The Cupboard lights up. Red gives way to Orange fades to Gold. The Flame grows, intensifies, brighten- I quickly snuff the flame before anyone can notice it from outside. At least I know I can do it, better practice at night when nobody will notice.

I returned to hitting myself in the face with cookies, and by the time I fell asleep I had managed to send them in directions other than my face. I had even gotten accurate enough to throw two at each other in the air. Summoning still resulted in the object in question hitting me in the face half the time, but progress was progress. I drifted off with a smile on my face and crumbs in my hair.

And there's chapter 1, wooo


	2. Heading Out

I awake early once more and help myself to the remaining cookies. Today is going to be great, I'm meeting Hagrid, getting money, and shopping! I hope they have bags of holding. But first I'll have to get out of here and The Door is still locked.

I glare at The Door before deciding to practice magic instead, since everyone is asleep I can do more flashy magic, maybe even see if speaking helps anything. I know in the books it seemed like it made it way easier to do things.

"Move." I intone softly at the, now empty, bag of cookies, keeping the requisite concepts in mind.

The bag hits me in the face just like the cookies. I think it was easier though? Calling the concepts to mind seemed smoother at least, so maybe it's just a psychological thing. It's too bad I didn't build associations in my old world, it's likely easier when your young. The closest I ever got was probably being Chunni with anime and Pokemon mo-…

There's a thought, and if I remember correctly the words in a lot of anime served some other purpose. I know Dragonball's Kamehameha was a kind of mnemonic for gathering, containing, and focusing power, and the motions behind Yu Yu Hakusho's Spirit Gun are similar.

I bring the Concepts to mind and hold up my hand. -MOTION -LEVITATION -LIFT -FORCE -CONTROL -"PSYCHIC" The package glows with a nimbus of Oreen energy and slowly lifts itself off the ground.

I somehow manage to keep my cackles from waking the rest of the house. It's not perfect, the control is terribly shaky and I can tell I'm barely able to lift it, but it's a damn sight easier to concentrate on than before.

All to soon I hear the rest of the house waking up for the day. I haven't even gotten to testing other Moves or Techniques yet, the potential of Teleport or Instant Transmission alone… Though I suppose that's only if it doesn't end up a retexture of Appearition. I should probably try the Kawirmi or a form of Flash Step first, I'll need to figure out if Chakra control exercises even wor- My thoughts are cut off abruptly as Aunt Carnation unlocks The Door and informs me I'm helping with breakfast again.

As I help with the washing up a knock rings out from the front door.

"Were you expecting someone Vernon?" Even Aunt Carnation does nicknames, must be a family thing.

Verruca frowns "No Pet, I'll go see who it is."

As he goes to get the door I focus on attempting to prestidigitate the last plate. The door wasn't broken so it couldn't be Hagrid and thus didn't concern me. Uncle Verruca going nuclear in the entryway didn't change my opinion, though it did break my concentration enough that the water hit me in the face instead of dropping in the sink. Nor did the sudden stop to all the noise, welcome as it was.

"Harry?"

It took me a moment to realize the Scottish accent didn't belong to anyone I knew, and longer to realize that I was Harry. I turned to see a woman with her hair in a bun and, now that I was paying attention, one of the brightest glows I'd seen yet, though hers was mostly like the cats. I quickly formulated my reply.

"Yeeeeeeees?" I ask.

This isn't to plan, I have to conclude by the silence that everyone else is dead. Since I have no idea who this is they may be a Death Eater, were there female Death Eaters other than the crazy one? As I ponder this she replies.

"Hello Harry, I am Professor McGonagall of Hogwarts, I am here to answer your questions about the letter and take you to Diagon Alley to get school supplies." She smiles amiably.

"Oh, so you're not here to kill my relatives and kidnap me?" I ask to confirm.

She frowns. "No, as… Unpleasant as your relatives may be I am not here to harm you or them Mr. Potter, they are merely Petrified for the moment so I may speak with you in peace."

I most definitely do not pout at that, defending myself would've been the prefect time to test my fire magic.

"Alright, let me grab a hat from my room before we go." I answer. "I'm supposed to be famous and would like to shop unmolested." I head towards The Cupboard.

"Very well Mr. Potter, that does seem wise, I've seen how the crowds can get with Gilder- Merlin! Is THAT your room!?" She sounds surprised near the end.

I retrieve a beanie that _almost _fits properly and grimace. "Yeah, it's a bit small and the spiders are annoying, but at least it's mine and the bed is more comfortable than the floor." I checked that last bit the night before, I'm not sure _how_ it's less comfortable, but it is.

Oh, Professor MG looks… Mad? Not sure why though, seriously, based on relative size (and compensating for clutter) the cupboard has more space than my old cubicle.

Professor MG takes a deep breath and turns to me. "Is there anything else you need before we leave?"

I consider the question, I would've liked to figure out a variety of pocket space before going out, but I have no idea how long that would take.

"No ma'am" I say while putting on the beanie.

"Very well, we will be Appearating there directly, take my hand." She holds out her hand.

Huh, guess everyone is staying Petrified then. I shrug and take her hand.

"Now then, three, two, one"

Reality Blinks. There is Nothing. Everything Compresses. Can't-

Abruptly we are in a backyard. I drop to my knees and gasp for a few breaths.

"Mr. Potter, are you alright?" Professor MG looks concerned.

"Yes, just a bit surprising." I rebalance myself "Is Appearition always like that?"

Professor MG smiles. "Yes, though I gather it is worse with more people."

Huh, so that's a thing. I look around, there's a brick wall and trash bins. Professor MG is walking up to the wall, now she's hitting it with a st- Oh, ooooooh, that's Diagon Alley. Everything looks oddly slanted, does magic have some kind of effect on buildings that makes that happen? This bears looking into.

As the bricks unfold I ask "so where to first?"

"We will need to head to Gringotts first to pick up some gold," she begins walking into the alley, "after that it depends." She pauses before inquiring "do you possess a trunk?"

I consider the question, in the books Harry gets a super-trunk in the alley, or finds one in his vault, I can't remember which.

"I don't think so, and I don't think my relatives would let me borrow one of theirs" I say.

Professor MG looks like she ate something incredibly sour "Quite. Then we shall have to see about getting you one first."

As we advance through the dress-wearing crowd I try to remember everything about Gringotts. I think they were Klingon bankers, they hate humans because they always waste time and are condescending, and they have a salutation that involves killing things. Content with my analysis I look around, it seems everything is glowing, at least slightly, and a few people and objects positively shine. At least nothing seems blinding, I'm not sure if that's possible given I'm not looking with eyes that can be overloaded, but still.

Entering Gringotts I glance at the short security guards flanking the door. Those don't look like Klingons, maybe it's because they're magic instead of aliens. The inside of the bank is fairly typical, though it's done up with a lot more marble and pillars in a way that seems ostentatious.

"Mr. Potter, here is your vault key, please present it to the Goblins swiftly when asked for it, they do not appreciate wasting time." Professor MG hands me a small gold key.

Oh, so they're Goblins, right, they just act like Klingons. I take the key and pocket it as we step in line.

Hours (minutes) of waiting later it's finally our turn. Stepping up to the counter I place down the key next to a set of golden weights, look the Goblin in the eye, open my mouth, and promptly forget what I was going to say. Before I have a chance to recover Professor MG interjects.

"We wish to make a withdrawal from Mr. Potter's vault."

The Goblin looks at the key and nods "everything seems to be in order. Rotgut! Take these two down to the vault."

Another Goblin leads us out of the hall and to a minecart. The trip is ok, kind of mild really though the glimpses of riches, dragons, and horrors from beyond were a nice touch. All too soon the cart is coming to a stop.

"Don't those things go any faster?" I ask "That was almost boring" it was also positively sluggish compared to how my sister used to drive.

Rotgut looks at me appraisingly "I'll see what I can do"

Professor MG seems to pale at this for some reason.

"Now then, your key please Mr. Potter" Rotgut holds out his hand expectantly.

After handing him the key I step up to the vault. It's a simple metal door set in what appears to be a fairly typical cave wall. It also positively Blazes with a rainbow of light. As Rotgut turns the key, the colors intensify, then fade, leaving behind a vague green mist that smells of fire, brimstone, and metal. Inside the vault a light begins to emanate from everywhere at once, visible to my normal eyes, to glisten off of a veritable Hoard of coins.

As I begin to rake stacks into a sack, handily provided by Rotgut, I ask Professor MG. "So what are these coins called anyways? They look nothing like" blast, what is English money called, "anything I've heard about" I finish lamely.

Professor MG seems to start at this, "oh yes, I had forgotten you wouldn't know about that." At this she seems to mutter something about James under her breath. "The gold ones are Galleons, the silver ones Sickles, and the bronze ones Knuts. It is seventeen sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle."

I try to do some quick calculations and immediately go cross-eyed. Obviously the exchange rate is a conspiracy against people like me that are terrible at math.

"Always carry exact change, got it" I reply.

Professor MG stopped my enthusiastic shoveling of money shortly after that. By that point I had managed to discreetly sneak quite a few Galleons into my pants pockets for later with Psychic. The ride back up was rather subdued, I think it was faster, but still not enough to be exciting. On the bright side I got a much better look at the Dragon on the way back up, it was a fairly typical looking Adult Red Dragon, though it had a lot of extra spines and was sadly bereft of a Hoard to sleep on.

Blinking in the outdoor sunlight Professor MG lead the way to the trunk shop, it was a door in the space between two buildings with a sign above it that bore the legend "Slon Trunks". Going inside was.. odd, my M-kugan gave the distinct impression that the door twisted somehow in a way that was difficult to look at. Among stacked Chests, Bags, and Trunks inside was a pleasant looking young lady who immediately brightened upon seeing us.

"Hello Professor, another student needs a trunk?" she asks

"I'm afraid so Ms. Slon" Professor MG sighs "the standard if you don't mind."

Standard? I don't like the sound of standard. "Now wait, this is going to be my trunk for the next few years right? Since that's the case, and I've got enough money, I'd like as many extra features as possible."

Professor MG sighs even more heavily even as Ms. Slon seems to brighten.

"Mr. Potter, while that is true I would recommend thinking _carefully _about what you need." Professor MG says resignedly. "You still need enough to do the rest of your shopping after all."

I nod to this "Alright, I'm not sure what you've got so I'll just ask about the basics. Seven compartments, one wardrobe, one bookshelf, two rooms, and three stasis, with enchantments to make it weightless, shrink, and be openable only by me."

Ms. Slon frowns "Featherweight is standard, and I can do multiple compartments -though no more than five- and expanded spaces, can also include a key and some security, but shrinking can't be applied automatically to expanded chests, and I've never heard of the rest of those."

Interesting, maybe Hagrid took Harry to a different trunk shop.

"A wardrobe one would expand upwards into a wardrobe, a bookshelf is the same but with a bookshelf, and stasis prevents time from passing while it's closed." I consider things for a moment. "Instead of a key could you bind the compartments to different combinations on a combination lock?"

"Those first two are doable, but you'd need someone skilled in Time magic for Stasis," she looks thoughtful for a moment. "I might actually know someone that can help with that, but designing the charms will take ages, I can probably do the combination lock though. You said these were the basics, was there anything else you wanted?"

I grin and clap my hands together "I was hoping you'd say that."

I hear Professor MG groan lightly in the background.


	3. Shopping

Geez this took way too long, it doesn't help that Easter was the first break I got in awhile.

Oh well, here it is...

An hour (an hour) later I'm down about a hundred Galleons and up an IOU for an awesome trunk (it'll be finished in a few days), Ms. Slon has agreed to work on some of the more interesting ideas, and Professor MG seems to have gained a migraine. We grab lunch at the Leaky Cauldron (their fish'n'chips are quite good) and an Icecream from Fortescues (they actually have over 250 flavors). We made a few more stops for things like potions ingredients and a cauldron while I was busy with the icecream, though I do manage to swing a second set of ingredients and phials with the justification of practice.

All too soon we had moved on from the interesting items and headed to grab _clothes_. Robes or not a myriad of outings with my sisters, my previous life's sisters I remind myself, has left me weary of such things. Glaring at the sign declaring the shop to be Madame Malkins I follow Professor MG inside.

A smaller woman guided me to a raised platform where someone else began taking measurements while Professor MG stayed behind and struck up a conversation with someone named Agusta, she had a great hat. Across from me, also being measured, was a pale boy that looked like he had something in his cheeks.

"Ah, um, s-so you're the one that came in with Professor McGonagall?" He's so quiet I can barely hear him.

"Yep," I answer, "today has been great, I just got my letter today! Also we got Icecream, they have nevermelt mocha-chip flavor, Professor McGonagall wouldn't let me get it, but they have it! My next trip here is going to be awesome!" I restrain myself from cackling, pale-cheeks seems nervous enough as it is

"O-oh, umm" he fidgets a bit "so you're going to Hogwarts too then?"

"Yeah, it should be fun, I normally hate school but learning magic is neat, I actually can't wait!" I really can't, a nice, sturdy, castle will be a great place to test things I probably shouldn't in The Cupboard.

"A-ah, umm, d-do you know which house you'll be in?" He seems slightly absolutely terrified for some reason.

"Slytherin or Ravenclaw" I answer without hesitating "it depends on if learning magic, because its magic, is more of a Slytherin ambition or Ravenclaw trait, How about you?"

"Um, m-my Gran wants me to go into Gryffindor like my Dad." He somehow looks even more absolutely terrified at this. "But I'm probably going to end up in Hufflepuff." Now he's terrified and dejected.

"Why is that a bad thing? I mean sure, your Gran might be disappointed at first, but then she'll likely stop expecting so much. Whereas if you go to Gryffindor she'll likely keep comparing you to her ideal of your dad." I shudder slightly at that, rose-colored expectations are harsh. "Plus Hufflepuff's a great house, I'd likely be trying for it if it didn't have hard work as a requirement."

Now he's terrified, dejected, and thoughtful, I have no idea how he's managing to show that many emotions at once. Before he can say anything else the person measuring him seems to finish and starts guiding him away.

"A-um, I'll see you in Hogwarts then I guess." Now he's hopeful on top of everything else, huh.

"Likewise." I wonder who that was, should've asked for his name.

The assistant taking my measurements finishes shortly afterwards and presents me with my robes in a featherweighted bag. Professor MG looks at the remaining stops and sighs.

"Alright, the only things remaining are books and wand." She sighs again for some reason, "Ollivander's is on the way, we shall head there next."

Upon entering the dusty storefront I quickly noticed that the inside was so magically charged that even the air seemed to glow. As I looked about I noticed a wispy looking man quietly walking from the back that my eyes seemed to simply glide over him. Professor MG seems to narrow her eyes and sniff a bit as he nears us.

"Good afternoon." He seems mildly disappointed for some reason.

"Really Garrick, do you have to act so childishly" Professor MG sighs.

"I'll have you know that the term is eccentric, thank you." Ollivander sniffs "now, who have you got today?"

"That would be Mr. Potter." And with Professor MG's introduction I step forward.

"Ahh, yes" Ollivander starts as he stares at me, "You have your mother's eyes Mr. Potter, I still remember when she came in for her wand, ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work." He waves a stick glowing the same color he is and a number of measuring tapes start measuring me. "Your father, however, he used a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration." He pauses and looks around the shop, "I say used but it's really the wand that chooses the wizard in the end. Now where to start, I know." He pulls out a case from the wall that, like the others, contains a multitude of shifting colors. "Willow and dragon heartstring, nice and whippy"

As I grab the wand off of its pillow the colors Surge, the colors flash down my arm and Intensify before settling a few dozen shades off of oreen. At Ollivander's direction a give the wand a wave and a shockwave seems to move down the color and into the wand before emerging as a mostly invisible force that breaks several boxes on the wall, sending rods of color clattering about.

"Hmm, no I suppose not." Ollivander is suddenly among the boxes again "Aha! Apple and unicorn tail hair."

This continues for awhile, Ollivander getting more excited with each failure, the store looks like a disaster area with several charred and shattered boxes littering the floor. Professor MG excused herself around the fifth wand (Vine and unicorn that had shot out a cloud of odd smelling grey-green powder) saying she'd be back shortly, and would wait outside. I had just been rejected by the twenty-seventh wand (holly and phoenix feather) when Ollivander paused for long enough to get a question in.

"Are wands the only foci? What about jewelry or staves? Are there any other wand cores? Is wood necessary or can you use metal? Could you use bone instead of wood? Could you implant a wand core in a finger bone? Do wands work through gloves? If they do then how far removed can they be before they stop working? Could you make a ring focus? What about a gauntlet? Can a wand have multiple cores? What about multiple woods? Could you use dragonbone instead of wood?" As I pause for breath Ollivander goes from taken-aback to thoughtful.

"No there are staves, though those tend to be bulky and unwieldy, some gems can help but it's rather hit-or-miss. There are other things that can be used as cores, however any others tend to be substandard and temperamental. The only metals that could potentially be used are Goblin and Dwarven secrets. Bone might be possible, though I've never attempted such a thing. If bone works I don't see why you wouldn't be able to implant it, it wouldn't be much different from the old living staves, though the process would likely be incredibly painful. They do work through gloves though the general rule of thumb is you have to think of it as a part of you. Since I can't work with metal a ring or gauntlet would have to be wooden, but it might be possible. Multiple cores only work if the cores are similar enough, and even then they tend to explode at inopportune times. Multiple woods are usually only possible if the tree itself had multiple woods, though they are possible. I never actually considered dragonbone, but in all likelihood it would combust." He looks at me. "Some of those ideas are quite intriguing actually, I wonder…" he trails off while heading to the back. "Aha! Here we are, twelve inches, beech and sycamore with dragon heartstring, a rather unusual wand, but you seem rather unusual yourself Mr. Potter."

The wand had an obvious jagged divide through the center where the two woods had grown together. As I picked it up I felt my magic respond to its prodding and a shower of green and orange sparks shot from the tip.

"How curious" Ollivander looks at me even more intently than before "Wands with two woods aren't unheard of, but they are quite rare and rarer still that they choose a partner." He moves back, "I daresay you are destined for great things Mr. Potter, a wand like that will hardly settle for anything less."

I pay for the wand as well as a holster and care kit and meet Professor MG outside. She appears to be carrying a cage with a snowy owl. That's odd I'd assumed that since Hagrid wasn't taking me I'd just have to come back later to get Hedwig.

"Mr. Potter, I know it's your birthday soon so, well here." She presents the cage, "I knew your parents and I cannot say how sorry I am that you ended up with those horrid people. I'll be trying to get the Headmaster to allow that to change, but at least with an owl you'll be able to stay in contact with others."

Man, I have magic, a vault of gold, magic, all this cool magic stuff, an owl and magic. "Thanks Professor, this is the best birthday ever!" Her smile seems kind of strained now, odd that, I focus on Hedwig. "I don't suppose you'd b willing to be called Hermione?"

An annoyed "Preck."

"Come on, it'd be funny."

A Glare.

"Fine, Hedwig it is."

"Preck."

"Alright, fine."

I open Hedwig's cage and she flaps to my shoulder. Professor MG seems slightly taken aback by this, but she quickly rallies and begins directing us to the bookstore. Upon entering I see the shelves bearing tome after tome of knowledge stretching much farther than the exterior would suggest. All of this magical knowledge, all this power, mine for the taking MWAHAHAHA(thwap). Hedwig hitting me with her wing brings me back to the present and I realize I had been cackling under my breath. Quickly leaving a sighing Professor MG behind I beeline for the section near the back where the thickest tomes are.

Hours(minutes) later I find myself greatly disappointed by the books about. All these books and half of them are useless history, fiction, or 'science' (though I hesitate to call it that) Most of the magical books are odd theories by people who have never heard of scientific principles except in passing, clickbait-y jinx compilations, and incredibly dry how-to manuals that explain things in the most roundabout methods possible. I groan, if this is the sum of knowledge wizards have to work with it's no wonder Lord Deathfear steamrolled them. Most of the principles they're working off of are outdated at best, and outright wrong at worst. I'm pretty sure one of the books had a treatise on Aristolean Physics and why they were correct, another called lightning a bolt of purest magic, and several more went on at length about a theory and then contradicted themselves many times over not two paragraphs later. This is absolutely unacceptable. There were at least a few passable books for potions, rituals, and herbology that were untouched and ignored, but anything decent was few and far between. I was just finishing up looking through some abominations of literature (they were actually alright for fiction stories, but someone had put them in the DADA section) by someone named Lockheart when someone turned the corner and tripped over me.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, are you alright?" Dear lord her hair is frizzy, it looks like an angry cat.

"It's quite alright, I should probably be paying more attention but the books so far have been infuriating." I commiserated.

Lady frizz straightens "I know what you mean, it's hard to choose between them they're all so interesting."

"Not quite what I meant." I state, "These read more like fiction rife with plotholes but are sorted in fact, half of the Theory authors seem to have never heard of the scientific method, and I swear I saw a book calling Newtownian physics 'a fad that those muggles will soon grow out of'."

Now Frizz is frowning, "are… are you sure? I mean these books are written by experts, maybe they're just using different terminology or something?"

I consider that. "No, I don't think so, there are a few good ones but this is likely because of how small the wizarding community is around here, it seems that actual experts are hard enough to come by that its too easy to get the title."

She seems to brighten a bit at that, "well at least there are good ones, umm, which ones do you have? I already have a few only it looks like I have to go through them again."

I read her the titles, "So are you going to Hogwarts too then?"

"Yes" she seems to blush a bit "I'm the first in my family, I always knew something odd was going on around me, but it wasn't until I got my letter that I knew for sure. What... what about you?" She asks nervously.

"I think my parents were magical, but I grew up with my aunt who isn't. Today is actually my first time doing anything with magic and I only got my letter yesterday, Professor McGonagall brought me here to get my things today."

Frizz brightens at that "she's the one that gave my parents the orientation and told us how to get to Diagon Alley. Apparently she's the Gryffindor head of house." She looks determined at that. "That's the house Albus Dumbledore was in and it's the house that I want to be in. Umm, how- how about you?" she finishes shyly.

"Well I'm hoping for Ravenclaw, I'm not brave so much as I find fear tiring so Gryffindor's out, I have no real ambition other than learning about magic so Slytherin's out, and I'm allergic to hard work so Hufflepuff's out. But aside from that I hope for Ravenclaw because I've heard they have a private library."

Her eyes seem to glaze over at that last bit and she ends up being called away by someone I can only assume is her mother shortly after. I hastily finish my sweep for adequate books and by the time Professor MG comes to tell me my time is up I have a decent stack on top of my school books. She is quick to herd me through checking out and back to where we entered the alley.

"Alright Mr. Potter, do you have everything?" She asks expectantly.

I make sure to check my things over, "yes, that's everything, but how will I come back for my trunk?"

"It should be delivered by owl post once it is finished." Professor MG checks her pockets "on the off chance that it isn't, aha!" She pulls out a pamphlet titled Magical Movement and hands it to me. "That has a list of all the methods you can use to get around, the one you will likely end up using is the Knight Bus, I would recommend not eating before you use it. Now, if that's everything then please hold on Mr. Potter."

The world Shifts again, I can see nothing made of colors, everything Compresses, I can't-. And we're back in the foyer of the house.

Professor MG glances at The Door and her eyes narrow, "One last thing Mr. Potter, call it an apology of sorts for my part in placing you here all those years ago."

Her wand begins dancing through the air as a rainbow of colors alight towards The Cupboard, The Door opens and the colors Intensify. Professor MG is muttering under her breath, a chant I can't quite make out. Things seem to Twist and Shift. The Door shrinks while getting larger, the bed is too far away and right next to The Door. Then, as suddenly as it began, The Door closes and everything seems to return, though The Cupboard seems to glow in an odd way.

Professor MG smiles even as she looks tired, "well Mr. Potter, I look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts."

She returns towards the entrance and several voices shouting follow. I decide to ignore the shouting for now and decide to see what happened to The Cupboard. Walking up to The Door I suddenly feel smaller as The Door is the size of a regular door, in spite of not changing at all. Opening The Door I am met with a room that wouldn't be out of place upstairs, the bed is now much larger and the blankets look incredibly soft. Everything has been changed to be of the highest quality, clothes, floors, wall, and celling alike. There's even a desk where a beam once sat across the wall and drawers under the smallest step. Setting my things aside and sitting on the bed I pull out a book to read and inevitably succumb to sleep on the luxurious mattress.


	4. The Train

Got this one done much sooner, it helps that I had the idea of it planned out already

I woke up early again, and looked around my new room. It seems like Transfiguration is an excellent thing to learn, and while I can't use my wand I'm not sure how much I want to rely on it. It's a fact that, even while I played games, I always tried to rely as little as possible on 'required' items to the point of preferring monk to fighter, and sorcerer to wizard in spite of the obvious inefficiencies. Hmm, I should probably look into whether DnD exists here, for that matter whether the things I tend to reference exist here. It wouldn't do to spoil an ending in advance and accidentally get hailed as a seer. First things first though, I need to practice, with all this space I can finally try testing range.

For some reason Psychic still has an annoying tendency to fling things at my head when I lose focus, on the bright side it does give incentive to focus, and I'm getting way better at dodging when distracted. The range seems to cover the whole room, even if I stand in one corner, though it does get harder to focus on things the further something is away. Interestingly if I hover something and move it outside the range of my M-kugan I can still 'see' the object and focus on a small range around it which is handy.

All too soon I am summoned by Aunt Carnation to help with breakfast, she doesn't seem to notice what Professor MG did to The Cupboard, her eyes sort of glaze over when looking at it. I decide that since the cat is out of the bag so to speak as far as magic is concerned, I should use it to help. For some reason this makes Aunt Carnation rather skittish, but any time she looks like she's about to say something she seems to think better of it.

Throughout the day I'm sent to do various chores that I take to be chances to practice magic. Outside I'm careful to keep things subtle by alternating between attempting storage, structural analysis, and reinforcement, I'm pretty sure nobody notices how all of the weeds seem to vanish/disintegrate/explode before being placed in the trash but by the time I'm done I've succeeded at using structural analysis thrice and reinforcement once. Inside I'm tasked with cleaning for a bit until I manage to create an indoor dust-devil and Aunt Carnation shoes me out of the house until dinner.

This was the basic state of affairs for the week preceding my journey to King's Cross. The Trunk arrived with plenty of time to redecorate (shove my new bed inside) and pack in true Minecrafter fashion (toss everything inside a random compartment and hope the potions ingredients don't get out). I additionally made a few trips into London using the ever fun Knight bus, while under a Henge as a completely average man. No really, completely average. Totally didn't go as an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike just because I could, that would be silly.

Turns out the timelines seem to mirror each other, though since I never payed any attention to dates in my original world I can't be sure, I don't think Dragon Ball should be out in London just yet, but there it is. Additionally I now have many books that I remember enjoying in my previous life, and a few new ones that I don't think existed in my old world.

A final thing of note is that after losing 34 Knuts, 7 Sickles, 5 Galleons, 12 socks, countless weeds (65), and a quill I have admitted defeat in making a pocket dimension for now. The closest I have managed is putting a sort of 'soulbound' effect on items, it's similar but takes way too much concentration and time to bind anything. As a workaround I have a 'soulbound' binder with card sleeves (photo album) and figured out how to 'store' things as cards (photos). It's a bit annoying to have to go through so many steps, but I have hope that a pocket dimension is possible with more control. I would have Shadow Clones practicing 24/7 to that end if it were possible, but the one time I tried to make a clone I woke up to Aunt Carnation's tapping, having passed out for the entire night.

Getting off of the Knight Bus at King's Cross I make my way to platform 9 ¾. Hedwig receives some odd looks from my shoulder, but that's the problem of whoever is supposed to maintain the masquerade. Reaching platform 9 I worry for a moment that I'm in the wrong place until I notice one of the walls glowing with magic. I walk through the glowing wall without so much as hesitating, Hedwig gives an annoyed preck and a wing-slap at the lack of warning. On the platform proper people crowd around saying goodbyes and doing last-minute checks of luggage. I'm here a bit early, so I head to the express to grab a good compartment.

Passing by several compartments that are already claimed, and a few that are simply locked, I find a nice one at the end of the third car. Sitting down I take stock of my things. Bound to me I have my card book that used to be a photo album, my Trunk, my wand, and a few bags and miscellaneous things. I pull out my Trunk to de-card so that it doesn't look like I've forgotten it- and it's on the other bench instead of the rack. I glare at the Trunk ineffectually and try agai- it's on the seat again. Another three tries that most definitely do not end with me forgetting I can just levitate it up later and I'm sitting down with my card book.

I'm so engrossed in choosing a book from my 'cards' I don't notice the person entering my compartment until they gasp when I de-card my transfiguration book. I look up to see Frizz, wide eyed and mouth open. There is a short pause and I manage to open my mouth before getting hit by a wall of noise.

"Ohmygoddidyoujustpullabookoutofapictureisthatsomethingwizardscando?Doesthepicturehavetobetakenacertainwayorcanitbeany?Canyoudoitwithanyitemorjustbooks?Canyoupullpicturesoutofpictures?Doesitworkforfictionalthings?Canyoupullthingsoutofbooks?WhatbookdidyoulearnitfromandcanIreadit?Isthereasizelimittopullingthings?Canyoupulllivingthings?..."

She quickly turns an odd pale pink that looks like she's trying to force more words out while not having any air. Luckily Hedwig decides she's had enough and lets off an annoyed screech and a noise that sounds oddly like a huff. I take the opportunity to interject.

"I'm not pulling anything out of anything, just changing a book between one form and another. Though I don't see why you couldn't pull things out of pictures or anything, it'd probably make conjuration easier because the hardest part of that seems to be holding an image in your mind." I pause and consider things, even if items aren't empowered Libromancy would still make for a useful tool. "This bears looking into actually."

At that I pull out an instant polaroid I bought with the 'binder' and snap a picture of my transfiguration book. As I wait for the picture to finish developing I put the camera back in the 'soul space' or wherever my unsummoned items go and, after a moment of consideration, pull out my wand. My wand makes everything much much easier, but I view using it as a crutch. I'll use it to learn things, but once I know how to do them the training wheels come off. It also doubles as a trump-card.

Frizz frowns, "are you trying it now?"

"Yep, no time like the present after all" I say cheerily.

At that Hedwig flaps up to my trunk and out of the potential blast radius, I would be annoyed but she does have a point. I point my wand at the picture and hesitate, I don't know of any phrases I could use for this and the one I was using for transfiguration, Polymorph, doesn't seem quite right. Thinking about it I decide upon a phrase I heard a few times before, gather the Magic, fix the Concepts in my head, and Cast with a declaration of "Carpe Librum!"

As the smoke clears Frizz starts an annoyed tirade. I would listen but I'm too busy being excited. She's just finishing listing how many rules she thinks I've broken when she's brought up short by the two books I'm holding. One of them is a bit scorched and is somehow now written in comic sans, but it's there. The pages look like they had something grey spilled on them and are slightly chalky, but they're legible. And most telling of all, the picture of the book is now a picture of an empty lap.

"But.. You… Rules… Book…" I think I broke her, oops.

Levitating her trunk into the overhead compartment and out of the way, I step up to the door to get some ventilation when it opens and a familiar face looks in.

"U- um is there room here?" Pale is here, neat.

"Hey! Pale, come on in there's plenty of room." I gesture around the compartment, "Here, lemme get your trunk." I levitate his trunk up with the others, using a wand makes it so much easier. A frog pokes its head out of Pale's robes but it quickly shrinks back upon noticing Hedwig glaring at it.

Pale seems slightly worried for some reason but sits down next to frizz.

"A-ah, is, is she ok?" Pale asks, gesturing at Frizz who has trailed off into distracted mutters.

"Yeah, she's just freaking out a bit because she found out you can duplicate books. I can probably snap her out of it, one sec." I pull out my card book and de-card a copy of Lord of the Rings before waving it under her- oh wow her pupils actually dilated, I'm not sure that's healthy.

"Bwuh," she shakes her head a bit, "I'm sorry, the possibilities of that are frankly mind-boggling." She seems to notice that there's someone new in the compartment. "Oh, um, hello, I'm sorry I didn't notice anyone else in the compartment." She trails off embarrassed.

I clap "it's fine, I should probably introduce you guys. Pale, this is Frizz, we met in the bookstore, Frizz, this is Pale, we met when getting robes." I say with appropriate gestures.

Frizz seems taken aback at that. "My name isn't Frizz. It's Hermione and, oh I suppose I never did introduce myself before."

Pale seems to rally at that as well and he states, "u-um, m-my name is Neville Longbottom, I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself before." His voice fades off at the end.

I consider that, Frizz doesn't look like Emma Watson, but then that was the movie, not the book. Also while Pale's name sounds vaguely familiar I can't quite place it. I think there was something about a sword?

I shrug, "if we're doing introductions I'm Harry Potter, but you can call me whatever." Huh, Pale's eyes immediately went to my forehead at that, glad I figured out the Henge even if it is more like Illusion than Transform.

"Are you really?" Frizz sounds incredulous, "only everything I've read say he has a scar on his head, and well.."

I sigh, "It's not like any of those books are accurate, I only found out about magic last week not when I was three. And it's not like scars can't heal." I grimace, "though if it's the only way to prove it." I drop the Henge just as the compartment door bangs open.

The redhead in the door glances around and, as soon as his eyes alight upon my scar, he asks "Can I sit in here? Only, everywhere else is full."

I sigh and nod to him. Really that couldn't be more transparent, though I suppose we're only eleven, even so that reasoning is almost cringeworthy. I move to levitate his trunk, but he shoves it under the seats instead as he sits down.

"I'm Ron Weasley," he introduces himself after a short pause.

"Hermione Granger," Frizz nudges Pale slightly.

"N-Neville Longbottom," Pale manages.

"Harry Potter," I brace myself for fanboying.

"Are you really?" Huh, not fanboying. A bit unexpected, it would also be insulting had I not actually been someone else a week ago, also a few days ago but Henge doesn't count.

"That's what everyone tells me, and apparently this is proof of identity" I say, pointing at the scar.

"Oh, sorry, only my brothers have tried tricking me before and they were the ones that told me you might be on the train." Huh, that's actually a fair explanation from someone living with The Twins.

"Meh, fine, I was just introducing myself to the others anyways." I allow.

"So that's where You-know-who…" he trails off looking at my scar.

I sigh, Red just has no tact at all, does he. "Apparently, but as I only learned about all of this last week I couldn't say. For all I know Lord Whatsit tripped down some stairs, dropped a knife in my crib and I cut myself on it. I do know that all the books they're selling about me are inaccurate though, I've lived with my nonmagical Aunt and Uncle, not Gandalf after all."

Red has the good sense to look sheepish at that, Pale still only looks nervous and Frizz just looks annoyed that books can be wrong.

"What's living with muggles like then?" Red asks, "my dad goes on about them but he gets a bit difficult to follow when talking about muggle things."

"Honestly Frizz could probably answer that better than I can, I'm pretty sure my relatives hate me for some reason. Plus since I haven't seen how magical families do things I don't know how to describe the differences. Hell I don't even know what it would be like to live with twin brothers." It is to my eternal horror that I was the oldest sibling and the only boy in my family, it is a fate I would wish upon my worst enemy only because he made fun of my pain.

"Oh, I actually have five brothers, not just two." Red seems to have taken that as reason to explain, I suppose as long he's not asking for details about my life I don't have. "Charlie is a Dragon handler and was Quidditch captain, Bill is a Cursebreaker and was Head Boy, Percy is a prefect and has the best grades in the family, and Fred and George are pranksters." As he described each he seemed to deflate a bit. "If I do anything they did it's no big deal because they did it first, it's really frustrating."

His brothers have done a lot, neat. "So you don't want to just follow in their footsteps then?"

He snorts, "no, I already do that enough, I have Charlies old robes, Bill's old wand and Percy's old-"

At that the compartment door bangs open, cutting him off. Oh well, the last bit probably wasn't important. Stalking into the compartment like he owns it is- oh god his hair is nearly blinding, how can hair be that white, it isn't even glowing magically or anything, that's amazing. It almost prevents me from noticing the two boys standing behind him in the corridor.

Hair sneers at Red before glancing past Pale and Frizz to focus on my famous head injury, "I've heard that Harry Potter is here, are you him?"

I point to The Scar. "Yo, so who're you then?"

He puffs up like a bird, "I'm Draco Malfoy." Red doesn't even try to disguise a snort of laughter. "Shut it Weasley." He turns back to me, "you don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort like him, I can help you with that."

Huh, isn't Malfoy supposed to be wearing leather pants? These look standard, maybe the leather ones come later.

I look at the proffered hand and hold up a finger. "Just so I'm clear, the right sort are who exactly?"

He gets a guarded look, "the rest of us that intend to be sorted into Slytherin of course. We even have a compartment that an upper year expanded."

I stare at him appraisingly before responding. "Nope, not seeing it, you're a Gryffindor if anything, not a Slytherin."

Hair recoils as though slapped and everyone else in the compartment, barring Frizz, look incredulous.

"How do you mean?" Hair sounds angry, huh.

"You barged in here, insulted the company I keep, and admitted to wanting to follow behind others. None of that says ambition or cunning at all. Hell Red here has more of both, he came up with a reason to sit with us and intends to surpass his brothers, that's ambition and cunning right there. I bet he even plays chess like a true Guile Hero while I wonder if you have any hobbies other than following other's leads. Granted following is a bit more of a Hufflepuff trait than Gryffindor, but aside from the bravery needed to barge into an unknown compartment and firmly insert your foot into your mouth you can probably think of something."

Both Red and Hair seem awfully pale, wonder why. And Hair's just leaving while looking shell-shocked. Huh.

"I- I should probably… Yeah," and now Red's leaving. Wonder why.

Frizz looks really confused and Pale looks, nope still just nervous, maybe a bit of surprise.

The trip passes without event after that, it's mostly discussing my theories of magic with Frizz while Pale interjects every once in a while. The snack cart comes by but I've got a large amount of junk food stored in my 'cards' already, some of it's even from Diagon. Soon enough we come to the end of the journey and leave the train. Descending the platfor- that must be Hagrid. I still wonder why he didn't pick me up. I also wonder why we have to ride boats, it seems like an odd way to… oh… wow, that's… The Castle is beautiful from the water, even moreso than the brief glimpse we got from the platform and blows anything I remember from the movies out of the water. It kind of reminds me of the scene from the Polar Express where they come upon the North Pole, the feelings of awe and wonder it invokes are similar at least. The lights of the clifftop castle glimmer off of the water and contrast with a starlit sky uncontaminated with light pollution. The gothic towers breach the night in a foreboding manner, offset by the warm lights shining out of every opening. I enjoy the sight all the way until we pass through the ivy curtain and into a sheltered cove.

Professor MG shows up when we reach the entrance hall and gives a speech that I tune out. I glance around the students gathered there and catch sight of Red and Hair. Both of them still look pale and sort of… distracted I guess? Red is muttering to himself while Hair seems to be looking into the middle-distance. I hope they're ok. Noticing a commotion I cast about and see a number of transparent forms glowing in the air. Those must be the ghosts. I wonder if I could build a proton-pack and ghost trap. Do they even have ghost spells in this universe? I'd assume the history professor would've been assassinated if that were the case, so I guess not.

Professor MG lines everyone up and leads the way into- are those gold!? We get to eat off of literal Gold plates with Gold utensils!? What the frig, that just seems gaudy even without considering how much everything is glowing. I have enough presence of mind to hear Frizz mutter something about the celling and look up- wow, that's just, wow. If anything the sky in the celling is clearer and more starlit than outside.

There's a singing hat, but that seems positively mundane compared to everything else so I tune it out while trying to absorb as many details as possible. To my surprise I seem to have near perfect recall of anything I see with my M-kugan now, though that could just be because everything is so interesting. I focus for a second and the hat's song seems to start over. Did I just rewind ti- nope, can't move physically or magically, this is a recording, neat. I regain movement around when I initiated the re-watch, just as the hat was finishing singing.

As the sorting proper starts I glance at the other first years again, Red and Hair seem even more nervous now, I didn't think that was possible. Pale looks surprisingly calm all things considered, or maybe that's just because I have Red and Hair to compare him to now. And Frizz is-

"Granger, Hermione"

Being sorted now apparently.


	5. Sorting

As the Sorting Hat is placed on Frizz's head the hall falls silent. After a few moments the hat shouts "Ravenclaw!" to much fanfare. That's nice, the whole hat thing seems kinda cult-ish though. I suppose when in Rome…

I try messing with replaying memories while I wait. This whole thing seems familiar, wasn't this a magic from one of the later books? It was called something like writing-strainer right? It also kind of sounded like thinking about something, I think? I try to rewind to when I read the book, but get darkness and a distinct impression of a 404 error. Apparently it only works on things seen with the M-kugan, I suppose re-reading the books would've been too easy.

The next person I know that's sorted is Pale, the Hat sits on his head for a bit before calling "Hufflepuff!" Pale actually looks less pale afterwards, neat. He's quickly followed by Hair who's almost vibrating with nerves. The Hat stays on his head for the longest yet before calling "Gryffindor!" Strangely he gets much fewer applause and some of them seem to cut off halfway through. Hair looks shell-shocked as he walks woodenly to the Gryffindor table and it takes Professor MG a moment to call out the next name, someone named Moon, Gealach.

All too soon it's my turn, I walk up to the stool amidst mutters about my name and questions of where my scar might be. Sitting on the stool the hat goes firmly over my eyes -hello Mr. Potter- I wonder why that's necessary, surely the hat could've been -oh lord you're worse than Xenophilius- resized. Also why hasn't it spoken yet and why am I thinking about someone named -"Ravenclaw!"- Xenophilius? Huh, apparently I've been sorted without getting to talk to the Hat, that's disappointing.

As I take a seat next to Frizz the sorting continues. A few people are stealing glances at me that I probably wouldn't notice were I not able to look everywhere. I think the only person I care about being sorted now is Red I think. Geez he looks one minor shock away from keeling over, it's just a hat I don't get what's so scary about it, hell even Pale seemed fine with it.

And now for Red's sorting, the hat goes on and… This is taking ages, what, is he arguing with it? Now I really wish I could've talked with the Hat, I haven't had a good argument with a mostly inanimate object since trying to convince Siri to swear. Oh well, it's only what? Twenty-thirty years before that happens? Damn I wasn't even alive that long previously, this is going to be annoying. I feel like I should've been interrupted by now, this sorting has to have broken a- "Slytherin!" Ah, there it is, and now Red's passed out, probably from relief it's over. Maybe he's afraid of hats?

After that bit of excitement the sorting was basically over and soon Gandalf was standing up to give a speech. Wait, no, not Gandalf, that's Dumbledore, right. And the speech is over, I like him already. Looking around at the magically appearing food, I grab some juicy-looking beef wellington and answer the questions of the rest of the Ravenclaws. Most of them are variations on "Where's your scar?" or "Do you remember that night?" in ways that might be vaguely less offensive. I end up ignoring most of them after a bit in favor of continuing my discussion from the train with Frizz.

All too soon the feast came to a close with the disappearing of dessert, it was slightly disappointing they didn't have any coffee ice cream, I should find the house elves and ask about that. I think the kitchens are behind a pear? Or was it that they're near the Hufflepuff dorms? Why is everyone going quie- ah Dumbledore is standing.

"Now that you are all fed and watered I have a few short start of term announcements before you can head off to bed." Dumbledore gazes about the tables for a moment, smiling. "First years, and no doubt a few older years, should note that the Forbidden Forest is, in fact, forbidden in spite of what the name might suggest. " His eyes twinkle as he glances past the Gryffindor table, holding a few students in his gaze. "Mr. Filch has requested I remind everyone that there is to be no magic in the corridors, if you wish to practice there are a fair few places that are out of the way of unsuspecting passers-by." He seems to look over a few older students. "Quidditch trials will be held, as always, in the second week of term. If anyone wishes to try out for their house teams I ask that they contact Madame Hooch before then." He pauses, considering something. "Finally, the third floor corridor is off limits for the foreseeable future unless you wish to have a most extraordinarily painful death."

Several students laugh at that, thinking he's joking, I make sure to note the Forbidden Forest and Third Floor Corridor as places of interest. If games have taught me anything it's that those are the best places for loot.

Frizz turns to me, concerned, "Surely he isn't serious, why would they leave something so dangerous in a school?"

I look at her quizzically, "likely similar reasons to why they have the Forbidden Forest, sounds fun anyways."

"You can't seriously be thinking about breaking the rules and going there after hearing about that! You could be expelled!" She hisses the last bit like it doesn't bear thinking about.

"If that were the case he wouldn't have given reminders about staying out of the forest, it's a detention at worst, besides hands-on experience is always the best way to learn. Plus the corridor isn't actually off-limits unless you don't want to die painfully." I remember when I thought the rules were everything, so many opportunities wasted. "I mean how many books have you read that would've been incredibly boring had the protagonist not broken or twisted at least one rule?"

She moves to continue arguing but Dumbledore interrupts her by starting the school song, several ribbons twirling out of his wand and hovering in the air to serve as subtitles. It was rather interesting, I tried to keep to the Pokemon theme and the words fit surprisingly well, though the last line was a bit iffy. With that we were sent off to our dormitories, the path to the Ravenclaw dorms apparently led through at least one false wall and down two flights of stairs in spite of ending up in a tower. The group apparently halted at a door with no handle, but an eagle doorknocker. The door was as saturated in glowing magic as the rest of the castle, but the knocker was especially bright. One of the group leading us stepped up.

"Right you lot, this is the entrance to the Ravenclaw dorms, the door has no knob and in order to enter you must knock the knocker three times then answer a riddle. The riddles don't technically have 'correct' answers, as long as you can argue your point you will be let in, remember that, because simply answering will do nothing. If you say "I don't know" it will tell you an answer and bar you from asking again for five minutes, though the older you are the longer the wait."

To demonstrate he knocks and the knocker asks; "The one who made it doesn't need it, the one who buys it doesn't buy it for himself, and the one who needs it doesn't know he needs it."

The, I assume he's a prefect, speaks up, "The classical answer would be a coffin, however." He turns to the knocker, "medicine for a child, the apothecary doesn't need it, the child's guardian buys it for them, and the child won't know what medicine is."

"Well thought out," with that the door opens.

Stepping off the spiral staircase and entering the common room, I am met with a large amount of blue. The walls themselves are white, but the eye is immediately drawn to the celling, a dark blue skyscape upon which sits a field of glimmering stars, occluded in some places by some blue fabrics extending up the starlit canopy. Drawing my gaze from the domed roof I look around the room, there are scattered desks in rich woods and a small nook with a large bookshelf flanked by bronze eagle statues that I assume is the Ravenclaw Library. We are separated by gender and guided up another staircase and to the dormitories, they are done in a similar style as the common room, but more subdued. Our trunks are already at the foot of the beds. Everyone seems sleepy after the events of the day and I only stop to change into some more comfortable clothes before collapsing on my bed, it happens to be the one closest to the window, and I gaze at the sky as I fall asleep.


	6. First Classes

I awoke early once more. It's odd, I never really liked waking up early until now, I guess it's because I still have so much to do. I get ready for the day and head down to the common room, It seems I'm not the first one up, there are a few people reading in the comfortable chairs around the room. The prefect from last night is sitting at one of the desks, I think someone mentioned his name was Robert? I give a mental shrug and move to where he's sitting.

He looks up from what he's reading, "ah? Harry, you're up early, did you need anything?"

I shake my head, "No, I was just wondering what time breakfast is supposed to be and where Hedwig, my owl, is."

"Breakfast starts at around six-thirty, so that's," he brings up his wand and with a mutter numbers appear in the air. "About an hour from now, it continues until eight which will be when schedules are handed out and the day begins proper. Your owl will be in the owlery, directions are a bit tricky." He thinks for a moment. "Actually if you're willing to wait a bit I think Penelope is going to be heading there once she finishes her letter." He motions towards a blonde girl sitting at a desk next to one of the windows.

"That would be brilliant, thanks!" I move to one of the nearby chairs and summon my binder to flip through while I wait.

I'm not waiting long when Penelope motions for me to follow her. She strikes up a minor conversation about how I'm liking Hogwarts so far, but it quickly turns to questions about me and I swiftly cut those off with disinterested answers before she can ask me something I don't know.

We arrive at the Owlery and I'm quick to pull out some owl treats for Hedwig. She lands on my shoulder and I walk out into the castle to explore while she snacks. Turning left I notice a patch of wall that seems to shine brighter than the rest, I shrug and poke it. My finger passes through, so I enter the now identified secret passage to see where it leads.

Ten minutes (five minutes) later I arrive, panting, at the top of a flight of stairs that was hidden behind a suit of armor. Exiting into a hall from behind a tapestry I spy a window and look out to see a beautiful view of the sunrise over the lake. Turning I decide to enter the door at the end of the hall, inside is an empty classroom with the desks pushed against a wall and a lot of open space. This is a perfect place to start training. Noticing my intent Hedwig gives a huff and flaps off to the top of a tower of desks. I give her a flat look and begin training.

Fifteen minutes (an hour) later I have finally managed to stick to the wall for five steps without falling off. Additionally, in breaks while my head was hurting from floor-impacts I trained other things. Among them I managed to successfully use low-power versions of Ice Shard, Water Gun, Thundershock (or at least Shocking Grasp), and I think I even managed Quick Attack. It's hard to say, the wall approached rather fast and the time surrounding hitting it is all fuzzy. Checking a pocket watch I got because it looked awesome and steampunk-y I note that breakfast will have already started, Hedwig re-alights upon my shoulder as I leave the abandoned classroom in search of breakfast.

Thirty minutes (fifteen minutes) later I have to admit I'm lost, the castle is confusing and the paintings don't help. I asked one of them for directions and he sent me to an empty landing. I suppose it's possible he didn't remember the staircase would've moved, but still. I check my watch, I have about forty-five minutes before breakfast ends, obviously this calls for drastic measures. I eye the wall next to the stairwell and glance below, the next landing isn't that far down and it's only two or so till the bottom. Mind made up I vault the railing and use magic to stick to the wall and slide down. While walking might still be too difficult sliding is much easier, especially when I use a hand to steady myself. Repeating the process a few times lands me near the top of the grand staircase, following the path from last night I am rewarded with the sound of conversation and the smell of bacon. Smiling I enter the great hall and find a seat at the Ravenclaw table next to Frizz and the other first years.

Frizz looks concerned, "where were you, someone said something about the owlery but you've been gone for hours!"

"Of course, this is an ancient castle full of secret passages, what, do you expect me not to explore?" I'm genuinely confused about this, castles are great to explore.

Frizz just sighs, "I suppose I should've expected that. You really should have come down earlier though, a lot has happened, Ron got a letter that yelled at him and Draco was looking for you."

I give her a blank look, "who now? Do I know them?" the names are familiar…

She gives me a Look before sighing again, "Red and Hair, are you honestly that bad at names..?"

I swallow the bit of breakfast taco I was munching on, "to be fair I'd probably forget my own name if people didn't keep reminding me of it." I had done that a few times, it usually ended with Aunt Carnation yelling at me for some reason.

I look around the rest of the tables, Red does seem down, like he was yelled at recently, he also has bags under his eyes that say he hasn't gotten much sleep. And now Hair is…

"Potter, this is Your fault!" Right next to me, apparently.

Focusing on him I see why I didn't notice him earlier. His hair, once a brilliant silvery-white, is now bubblegum pink. It matches the hair of an upper year at the Hufflepuff table almost perfectly. He also appears to have bags under his eyes similar to Red's, I wonder why?

"I'm not sure how that's my fault, I haven't even tried using, I think that's _like_ my henge? On other people. Granted I'll take it as a compliment because it actually looks good on you and getting hair to work properly is hard." It really is, it took me _hours _(twenty minutes) to get the hair on my not-Arnold henge to look natural instead of somehow animated.

"No, Potter. I blame you because You are the reason I ended up in Gryffindor instead of Slytherin. Because of You I have to be in the same dorm as those infernal twins! I don't know what they did but I couldn't fall asleep and when I came down they were snickering about this." Eesh, he sounds angry.

"Huh, so that's why you ended up in Gryffindor. Still not sure why you're mad at me about it though, even if you do consider yourself a Slytherin it's not like any True Slytherin would ever be sorted into the house, that's giving entirely too much away." At least that's how all discussions about houses I remember seemed to go, usually citing the Hufflepuffs as the 'True' Slytherins.

Hair seems a bit taken aback by this, he goes to say something, but is cut off by the morning announcements.

Looking at my schedule it seems that our first class will be Herbology followed by Transfiguration after Lunch. Tomorrow we seem to have Potions and History. The schedule seems to have almost no pattern saying what class will be on what day, most seem randomly assigned, in fact there's a note that the schedule may change between weeks and that this one updates, interesting. And then there's Astronomy every Wednesday at around midnight, that's going to mess with my sleeping and Potions the next day won't help.

Looking around as we followed a Prefect to the greenhouses I notice that everyone else seems to have brought their bags. It's rather fortunate that I keep most of my stuff in cards really, otherwise I'd have to rush back up to the dorms and find my way back on my own, not like it'd be hard with all the windows in the tower, but it would be annoying.

Our first Herbology lesson is rather boring, and I do hope that won't be a trend. All class we stayed outside of the greenhouses and got a lecture about safety precautions. Granted given most of the plants seemed to have some form of interesting effect on humans there is a point to it, but it didn't make it less boring. Professor Sprout also didn't seem to appreciate my insistence that most plants are weak to fire, seeing as that kills the plant and the ashes are seldom useful, though she did admit I had a point if the plant in question was too much to handle.

After lunch, where Hedwig seemed to keep getting odd looks, we were led to Transfiguration. In the process we were taken through a number of secret passages I had noticed on my adventure but could not open. The class was once again about rules and regulations and we had to take an absolutely massive amount of notes on what not to do with Transfiguration before being given a match and shown how to turn it into a needle. Staring at The Match I consider how to go about this, matchsticks and needles aren't really similar enough to do an easy material shift, and the concepts aren't close enough for a conceptual one. I'm not sure why this is a good idea for a first transfiguration, splinter into needle or even matchstick to splinter would be much easier. I pause at that, if both of those are easier then why not use the splinter as an intermediary, I could shorten it and remove that step later. I focus the Concepts into my mind, hold up my wand, envision the change, and attempt to make it so with a call of "Mutatio". When the smoke clears (it's a gift really) I am met with the sight of a lightly charred splinter. Most of the class looks surprised at the explosion, and those nearest to me slightly singed, except for Frizz who dove under her desk the second she noticed Hedwig flapping away from me.

"Mr. Potter, what one earth…" Professor MG trails off as she moves close enough to notice the splinter.

"I figured it would be easier to do matchstick to splinter, then splinter to needle, than to do it all at once." I state, "though I'm not sure why the explosion was so large, it's usually just some smoke."

That seems to snap her out of her staring, "yes, well, ten points to Ravenclaw for thinking things through, and another ten for managing to successfully transfigure it at least part of the way." She pauses, "though I must ask that you keep such disruptions to a minimum lest I need to take points." She moves away muttering something about James, I really wonder who that is.

I manage to earn twenty more points before the end of class, ten for getting the splinter to a needle and a further ten for doing the transfiguration proper. I also managed to help Pale manage up to splinter to needle and Frizz managed match to needle shortly after I did.

After Transfiguration we were basically free until dinner, I decided to take the time to study for Potions since, according to the upper-years, Professor Snape was incredibly harsh and I wanted to finish reading the books anyways. None of them seemed to have reaction tables or anything of the sort, though I did find a few that described the properties of various ingredients and what effects various methods of stirring, preparation, and heat seemed to have, though it tended to be noted that such things could change without notice. It reminded me of the way a number of cultivation manga represented medicine creation, or even a few games that have item creation minigames, with you needing to balance various properties to prevent the potion from exploding or any number of other things, although deciding the ingredients was more like what Harry Dresden had to go through in Dresden Files even if the properties seemed to be the same for everyone.

Dinner was fairly reminiscent of lunch, but with a number of upper years congratulating us on making it past our first day of classes. I managed to ask a few of them about Potions, and got the names of a few more books I should look for in the Ravenclaw Library. Frizz also pestered me at length about how I managed the transfiguration before I handed her a copy of Dealing With Dragons, I don't actually remember if that has anything similar to Transfiguration, but it was that or The Color of Magic and I want to reread that. The day ended with me lying in bed reading about potions, with a magelight hovering above me.

* * *

Yeesh this took too long, may end up editing it a bit later, but for now...


	7. Potions and Duels

Waking I led a path to and from the Owlery once more. Hedwig on my shoulder I looked out for an abandoned classroom. Now is the perfect time to try out some theories I had regarding potions, namely the ones about how ingredients worked. I think I'll start with Pepperup Potion, it's useful after all and… The recipe calls for coca leaves, this really shouldn't surprise me as much as it does. It has a few ingredients that might be supposed to counter addiction. Those seem to be in a lot of potions. I can try replacing the coca with coffee beans, taking out the need for most of the anti-addictives, the main other ingredients seem to be noted for their energy-up granting, if I replace them with sugar… Hang on. I take out a cookbook on making sweets that I grabbed, flipping to the chapter on hard candies and flavorings I reference it with the potions book. It seems that most of the ingredient preparations are similar, though the 'flavoring' would turn out more dilute it would function like the water necessary for dissolving the sugar, if I cut back on the water used initially it will hopefully come out as a candy instead of a liquid.

Seven attempts later I'm willing to admit this could be harder than I gave it credit for. At least I figured out how to stop them exploding after the fourth try but trying to guess how much of some ingredients to use and how many stirs is asinine. I sigh as I check my watch, I should just be able to grab breakfast if I leave now and slide down the wall.

After eating Hedwig decides she'd rather not be in the dungeons with people worse than me at potions and flies off. The dungeons aren't that hard to find, and I found myself paired with Pale. Professor Snap swept in the instant it was time for class and began roll call, I tuned him out until I heard my name.

"Ahh yes, Harry Potter, our new _Celebrity_." Geez I could taste the sarcasm on celebrity, I wonder if he hates famous people? Can't just be me, too many things I've read have Harry and Snap getting along.

"Potter!" I snap out of my shuddering at imagining the HarryXSnap shippers that I kind-of remember existed. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

I consider that, "I think Asphodel has something to do with Death, Trance, or Sleep, the magical one is supposed to be the source of the legends of the fields of Asphodel in the underworld after all. Wormwood is used in medicines and alcohols; the Alcohol side would enhance the Trance and Sleep aspects and the Medicine side would reduce the Death." Hmm, something like that might be just the thing to try with the PepperupMints I'm trying to make, maybe that's what the coca leaf was for. "I think powdering would result in the focus being more on sleep, and the infusion would amplify the connections to both Alcohol and Medicine." I consider what happened when I tried making things, "there's going to be more to it than that, but I'd say it's a sleeping potion of some kind." This stuff reminds me of a number of RPG crafting systems, except it actually makes sense.

Snap looks to be torn equal ways between absolute surprise, grudging acceptance, and apoplectic rage. As I turn to look at him the grudging acceptance seems to win out, though he seems to suppress a wince as our eyes meet. Also, now I'm thinking about lilies, how odd.

"Five points to Ravenclaw," he seems almost shocked he said that. "It is one of the primary components of the draught of living death, an extremely potent sleeping potion."

Snap then goes on to ask questions of a few others and put some instructions on the board before going to take something that looks like a headache-reliever. Pale and I make sure to prep all the ingredients beforehand and I control the fire and add ingredients while Pale stirs. In making the potion I notice something new, it seems that stirring is serving to guide magic into or out of the ingredients, that would explain how it affects the potency of the components. That must be what I'm doing wrong, I was working too hard at not letting my magic influence things too much.

Our potion came out just like the instructions said it should and we bottled it before placing it with a few others at the front of the class next to Snap, where he had been for the entire class nursing his head. The class soon came to a close and we left when dismissed, I found myself feeling like something was missing but couldn't quite put my finger on it.

The rest of the day was fairly boring, we had History, however the ghost that taught it was barely there. Also, I think he stole my energy and enthusiasm for history, that sounds like a fairly ghost thing to do, but when I mentioned it to Frizz she just got annoyed that I wasn't paying attention in class and still finished the homework before her.

The rest of the week followed without much incident, the rest of the classes either followed a similar pattern or continued lessons from previously. In Charms we learned a simple color-changing charm that I used to turn my hair bright orange in response to Hair's then neon blue, it worked much more easily than a Henge. In the class after that Red and I had a fairly interesting, if odd, conversation about how awesome cannons are that gave me some ideas. In Astronomy we learned that sleep is for the weak, actually I think it was supposed to be something about Orion, but I was too busy trying to charm the magnification even higher by abusing the hell out of color change charms. It was difficult to anchor the charms relative to the telescope, but that was really the only hard part seeing as the charms can copy basically any color or visible texture and I count lens as a combination of arced texture and see-through color, seeing as air is already see-through I just needed to alter the texture a bit. In Defense we learned… Something? I have no idea, interpreting accents is hard enough, stutters are just all kinds of worse. I still finished the homework before Frizz though, I should probably tell her I figured out Ctrl-F for books. Maybe later.

In other news my Training is working, that is I managed to make it all the way to the celling before falling on my head. I also managed to make a batch of PepperupMints of passable (read; edible) quality, it turns out that the coca leaf was an enhancer. I haven't tried one yet, but I hope they work alright. I even managed to practice another few sets of Pokemon moves including Grass Knot and Safeguard.

All too soon it was Friday, I was sitting down to Breakfast earlier than usual, flush from the success with the mints, when Hair came up behind me.

"Potter, I challenge you to a duel." He looked to be seething for some reason, also his hair was a fairly nice blend of red and gold, it went well with his house colors. It was much better than the nightscape pattern of the day before.

I blinked at this and turned to Frizz, "Frizz, you know the Code Duello, right? What does this entail?"

Frizz seems taken aback, "um, well I don't have it memorized, but from what I do remember you're supposed to attempt to reconcile without violence first." She looks to Hair.

Hair looks taken aback for a moment himself, but rallies with a sneer, "no, this is too far, I demand a duel, in the Trophy Room, at Midnight!"

Frizz purses her lips, "no, I may not remember everything about the Code, but I do know that Duels have to take place during the day." She considers something, "also you both need seconds."

I nod and look to the side where Pale and Red moved, as soon as they noticed Hair walking over, along with a number of other interested students. I motion them over. "Pale, you can be my second, and Red can be yours." I say motioning at Hair.

Hair looks a bit worried, but before he can say anything Professor Litwick comes down from the Head Table to see what's going on.

"Oh my, are you trying to arrange a duel?" He seems strangely happy about that, "I dueled in the professional circuit before coming here to teach!" That would explain it.

Pale speaks up, "I thought having a duel would be against the rules actually."

Frizz looks to him, "no, banning dueling in Hogwarts was considered in 1869, but received massive backlash at the time, in the end the rules were modified so that Professors could not challenge Students and a Professor has to be on hand in duels between Students." She blushes slightly at everyone looking at her. "At least according to Hogwarts a History."

Prof. Litwick smiles, "oh, very good Ms. Granger, ten points to Ravenclaw. Ever since then duels have been rather rarer. Now, we do have a dueling ring set up for these occasions, I'm afraid it hasn't seen much use over the years, but I make sure to check the enchantments at least once a year." He pauses to check the time, "oh, how wonderful, if we hurry we can get this done with before classes start!"

We begin heading out of the hall, but are stopped by Prof. MG. She looks us over, "Fillius, is something the matter?"

He shakes his head, "no Minerva, Mr. Malfoy just challenged young Mr. Potter to an honor duel and I agreed to officiate."

Prof. MG frowns, "surely that would be against the rules."

Prof. Litwick smiles, "no, Ms. Granger was kind enough to cite the rules and I have been sure to check them in the past. While professors are no longer allowed to instigate duels, the students are free to, as long as they obey certain rules. I must say I'm quite excited, it has been too long since the art of Dueling was seen in these halls, perhaps this will even stir up enough interest for a full club!" He looks positively giddy at the thought.

Prof. MG just sighs in resignation, "very well, however I must insist that the duel take place _after_ classes today."

Prof. Litwick deflates slightly, "oh, all right."

Prof. MG turns, then pauses as she walks back to the Head Table. "And Fillius, you're the one that has to tell Poppy."

This seems to cut down on Prof. Litwick's enthusiasm even further, "yes, of course…"

After the day's classes we are led to a room with a raised platform on one end, the room had signs of minor spell damage but was otherwise not dissimilar to a classroom. Almost everything was made of stone, but the scorch marks added a certain aesthetic to the space that made it feel welcoming, like my room.

Prof. Litwick clapped to get everyone's attention, "now, this is the dueling ring, I ask that Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy step forward."

Both of us step up to the platform and Prof. Litwick spoke up. "Now it has been awhile since dueling has been so much as seen in Hogwarts, officially at least, however Ms. Granger was kind enough to dig out an old copy of the rules for us."

Oh, rules, do I actually care about those? I don't normally when playing games but here they might be important. They're usually so boring though, and half of them end up being common sense anyways. I suppose they may be useful for finding loophole-

Prof. litwick snaps me out of my musings by moving back. "Now, since whatever you're dueling over is not grave enough to warrant a duel to the death I ask that you bow." He nods as we do so, even as Hair sneers. "Very good, now since I doubt either of you have learned anything that can do more than inconvenience the other we shall call this on first hit. Begin!"

I notice some colors shimmer up around the platform where we stand. I don't hesitate to cast a mostly invisible "Safeguard!" as Hair begins monologuing.

"Ha! I suppose you couldn't even get that spell right, it's a pity I only get one spell before the duel is called, I'll have to make it… Memorable."

It takes most of my nonexistent willpower to not simply hit him with something while he monologues, but I want to see how well Safeguard works and Hair shouldn't use anything that isn't a status effect. His call of Calvario! Disappoints me, I was sure he'd use that one amnesia spell after such a perfect setup. The spell flies towards me in a blaze of light and, huh it just vanished when entering the area of the safeguard. I smile, this seems to infuriate Hair.

A veritable rain of assorted, is it assorted if there's only about five spells? Meh, assorted spells later and Hair is panting. I smile even wider and begin speaking.

"You know Hair-" At that point I'm cut off by an inarticulate scream of rage and a sudden pain in my left eye. Casting about I notice that Hair seems to have thrown his wand at me, huh. How rude, and after I didn't interrupt his monologue. Hmph.

Prof. Litwick lowers the barrier looking rather nonplussed. "Well this seems rather unprecedented. The duel was to first hit, but one of the standard rules of wizard duels state that disarmament is a loss. It seems, for the first time in Hogwarts, we have a Tie."

I shrug and approach Hair to give him his wand back. He snatches it out of my hand and ignores my offer of a handshake, stalking off while saying, "I'll get you Potter, mark my words." Though he does pause after that to add, "After all, now I know your invincible spell's weakness."

Safeguard doesn't have anything to do with invincibility, how odd. Stepping off the platform I am beset upon by Frizz, Pale, Red, and a number of other students that congratulate me. Some ask me what spell I used, I easily answer that I used Safeguard and that it protects against indirect methods of attack. Prof. Litwick makes sure to award Ravenclaw and Gryffindor fifty points apiece for a "Simply splendid duel."

I end the day reflecting on the past week and thinking of how much free time the weekend will bring.

Canon OMAKE, The Cannons

Entering class, I noticed Red seemed a bit surprised, unlike last class he moved to sit next to me.

"You support the Cannons as well mate?" Curious, I thought wizards didn't use gunpowder for anything other than fireworks.

"Of course, cannons are always great, didn't know anyone here would think so as well."

He perks up, "yeah, after last year's Horntail incident most have given up, but I refuse to lose hope!"

How interesting, I guess dragons and cannons are competing forms of siege-weaponry here. "Yeah cannons lose out in mobility, but they more than make up for it in range, if you get a proper fortification built up you can lash out with impunity."

"Yeah I remember they tried that once, but puddlemere got in and wrecked everything, damn shame that." Ahh, water, natural enemy to gunpowder.

"Yeah, I thought there were charms for keeping out water and weather though." I know there are fireworks that go off with water, seems like a thing to have with cannons as well.

Red shrugs, "some people think it adds to the experience, both sides have to agree anyways, and the weather affects both equally."

"Yeah, I'd imagine it would be hard to fly in storms, I wonder if you could get goggles that help with visibility- "I'm cut off by the teacher beginning class.


	8. Taking Flight

Soooooo it turns out College becomes infinitely more strssful during the last semester since I didn't have any future semesters to use as a safety net in case of failure. Should be good for now though, just need to find a job before summer happens, shouldn't be too hard...

Oh crap, I just jinxed myself didn't I... 

And so the days continued, between that weekend and the next week I managed to figure out a basic move for each element and master wall walking. There were a number of people ambushing me outside classes to ask about the spell I used in the duel. Though they mostly stopped after I explained it was Safeguard, told them it worked on spells that caused minor 'status' effects and demonstrated casting it a few times. I also found an adorable doggo when waking down the side of the castle on my way to practice water walking. It seemed a bit confused at first, but I gave it some peanut butter I had carded and it was fine after that. While hanging out with him I found a trapdoor that I thought would lead to adventure but turned out to be boring, the most interesting thing was probably the rock at the end on a pedestal that I Indiana-Jonesed with a plastic copy I pulled out of a picture, but even that didn't do anything interesting except give off magic.

School work is going well enough, I think? At least none of the teachers seem to have anything bad to say, though they keep giving me odd looks. Professor MG in particular said something about our class mastering the matchstick-needle transfiguration faster than normal while staring at me for some reason, and Professor Litwick kept giving me points for the oddest reasons after he managed to get enough people to start a Dueling Club. The rest of the Professors weren't much better, though Professor Snap seemed content to ignore me for the most part, so at least there's that.

Today was the day of flying lessons, while I had initially hoped that meant unassisted flight it turned out that it meant with brooms. When I asked why we didn't simply make cloaks or those climbing harnesses fly I just got more odd looks than usual. We were led outside by Madame Hooch to where the brooms were lined up. Taking a spot next to Frizz and Pale I notice how Frizz is muttering under her breath and scaring Pale.

"Why are you two worried, all you have to do is sit down on something and travel slowly enough that hitting something doesn't hurt. From the way you're acting they've asked you to train a Dragon."

Frizz huffs at that, "you know it's not so easy, I've been reading and there are a number of things that affect how you fly. From how you lean to what you-"

"I'll just stop you there." I interrupt her before she can make Pale look any more like his name. "Do you know how to ride a bike?"

"Well yes, but-"

"And did you overanalyze that as well?"

"I mean, maybe…"

"And did it help at all?"

"…No."

"There, you see, this is going to be the same thing." I turn to Pale. "And Pale, why are you worried? The worst that can happen is you fall and, according to you, the last time you did that you bounced."

In lieu of response he simply gives a nod and looks determined.

Madame Hooch soon finished making sure everyone had a broom and gave a lecture that I summarily ignored. Eventually everyone started shouting UP at their brooms so I followed suit, throwing a twist of Intent to show-  
When the stars clear from my vision I realize the broom missed my hand and hit me in the face. Grumbling I get up and hold my broom, noting with some surprise that Frizz and Pale seem to have theirs already. Also Frizz is talking to Pale again. I should probably sto-

I'm cut off from doing so by Madame Hooch. "Alright everyone, now mount your brooms and-"

And now she's been interrupted by Pale losing his head entirely and jetting off while screaming.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Huh he managed to pull down to avoid the castle rather well. "-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"And now he's avoided the ground, not sure why he's upside down. "-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"The loop-de loops seem a bit much.

Finally, his broom seems to have had enough and snaps clean in half. While he's quite far above the ground. Someone should probably do something about that.  
Casting about with my 'eyes' it seems nobody else is doing more than gawking, including Hooch. Shrugging I call my wand out and call the appropriate Concepts to mind with a shout of "Feather Fall!"  
Abruptly Pale's descent is slowed from a sprint to a swift trot, the screaming kept up though. I'm not sure if he realizes what's going on anymore, yep on the ground and still yelling. Huh.

As his scream finally peters out and Madame Hooch moves to check him over, I'm jumped by Frizz.

"What spell was that!?"

I look at her, confused. "It was just Feather Fall, it's a basic first-level spell that everyone should know." I pull out my card book and flip through it looking for my copy of the ADnD player's handbook. "Here, I had to learn it from this, but it's not that difficult. You might be able to figure out some of the other spells too."

She looks through the book for a moment before turning to me again. "this is a game book, not a spell book."

"Well yeah, it's not like nonmagicals know that magic is real, right? So I figure this is either based off of stories of magic or is by magicals looking to make a quick buck from old teaching materials." At least that's what I assume from how different the spell descriptions are from what I remember, they include a lot more detail. "Either way most of the low-level spells seem to work and the wand seems to substitute for most components, though I suspect they'd make casting easier."

She looks back to the book with renewed interest, "that… actually does make sense, can I borrow this?"

"Sure, I only brought it in case someone wanted to play a campaign."

She gives me a nod of thanks and quickly hides it as Madame Hooch helps Pale back to the group.

"Alright, flying class is canceled until we go through the brooms and ensure there aren't any others liable to break like that. It's incredibly lucky that none of them have broken before now." She turns to me, "and thirty points to Ravenclaw for Mr. Potter's quick thinking. Falling from that height would not have been fun."

As we walk back to the castle Pale is quick to find me.

"Ah, th-thanks Harry."

"Hm? Oh, for the save. Nah, I'm sure if I hadn't managed it you would've bounced."

"S-still, if there's anything you need, just ask"

"N-"

Hmm, this could be a good way to help him with his nerves. Let's see, what books and manga do I have? Too bad Gurren Lagann isn't out yet, that would've been perfect. I haven't read that Fate/King's Sword one yet, or the mega man one, Redwall won't work. Ahh, I know!

"Actually, there is one thing." I smile and take out my book.

"R-r-really?" I think his voice just rose in pitch, I wonder why.

I pull out all the copies of Jojo's Bizzare Adventure I have and hand them to him. "These are from Japan, I assume they're a similar principle to the DnD books but haven't tried yet. Even if they aren't they should be a fun read."

"S-so you just want me to read them?" And now he's relieved, odd.

"Yep, maybe see if you can figure out some of the magic too, but that's not as important. I really just want to know the gist of it before I decide to do anything with it." I know the broad strokes, but not much more, so this will be helpful in deciding if I should actually read them.

"Alright."

The next day was interesting in that I got mail, one was a letter inviting me down to Hagrid's to talk for some reason, likely to use mind magic. I made note to respond in the negative to it, using the excuse that I have homework that I want to get perfect. The rest were various mail-order items I sent for, including a few new books and a number of potions ingredients I've been burning through. Of course Frizz notices this, sliding past Hedwig's plate of Bacon to inquire about them.

"Harry, why do you have so many potions ingredients?"

"I was running low and don't want to see what Snap would do if I do run out."

She pauses for a moment, "how are you using that many ingredients? We have double what we would use for the year."

I nod. "So it turns out editing potions recipes is harder than I thought. On the bright side I think I've developed a resistance to explosions!"

Frizz gapes. "Wh- why would you do that!? Rulebreaking aside it's incredibly dangerous."

Oh right, I never told her about the mints. Eh, Halloween should be coming up soon, that's enough of an excuse to be generous with candy.

"I made these," I say, pulling the most recent batch of mints out of a card. "I call them PepperUp Mints! They're better than sugar-blasted septuple espresso."

Frizz goes from surprised to alarmed after I finish, so I decide to demonstrate by tossing one into my mou- that's an invisible hand made of magic. It stole my mint. And now Frizz has stolen the others. How rude.

"No!" She pauses, "I mean, we should probably have these looked over by a teacher first, to make sure there aren't any side effects."

I pause, "that's actually a good point, I still don't know if the addition of minute amounts of uranium had the desired effects."

Hmm, she looks… Surprised? I would say concerned but I can't imagine why. It's not like pulling uranium out of that science book was difficult after all. Plus I ate a few of them in lieu of sleep last night and nothing untoward seems to have happened. Well, other than blacking out for about an hour after taking them and waking up with several dozen more made, but that probably doesn't mean anything.

All in all things had settled into a routine of sorts, going to classes, exploring the castle, watching Pale fail at learning martial arts, and all too soon it was Candy Day (Halloween). Of course today was an incredibly big day, I had finally gotten approval from Madam Pomfrey to make the mints! Well, not so much approval as telling her I "found" a recipe for them and was wondering if I had made them correctly, but she said that they were perfectly fine to use in emergencies and asked for the recipe so she could make some. Naturally this meant I was currently skipping dinner while trying to make enough mints to distribute to my house as Halloween gifts, though as I was juuuust finishing my final batch I should have enough time to get to the end of it.

This was, of course, when the wall decided to explosively vanish in favor of holding a Troll.

"Huh, so that's a- ohshit-" I reflexively raise a Protect as its club attempts to vanish me like the wall. Luckily the Protect holds and the Troll is left looking confusedly at its club, trying to figure out why and how a club ran out of ammo.

"Right, Troll, I think I'm supposed to stick its club up its nose? Let's try, Psychic!"

I bring the Concepts to mind and the club begins to glow. It lifts easily out of the dumbfounded Troll's hand, flies right past its head, and out a convenient nearby window, out of range of my Psychic. Well. That's less than ideal. Before I can follow the club's excellent example and GTFO, the Troll decides that the club was being useless anyways and resolves to figure things out after a meal. Taking exception to that I go to cast my most powerful… I don't actually have anything strong enough to hurt a troll, do I?

This thought distracts me for just long enough that my Protect only manages to slow the incoming fist down before it plows into me and flights me out a convenient open doorway. Dazed I almost miss the near simultaneous calls of "Harry!" and "Potter!" coming from two different side-hallways as I roll past.

I recover enough to sit up and see Frizz and Hair poking their heads out of the left and right side-passages, they are flanked by Pale and Red respectively. I manage to open my mouth before the Troll kool-aides through the wall, sending a piece of stone at my head that makes everything fuzzy for a few moments, though even through the fog I can see a bright flash. Why my head clears I can make out that the Troll has switched targets to Frizz, Pale is unconscious on the ground behind her, the Troll has a stone fist, Hair is furiously Banishing things at the Troll, and Red seems to be trying to trip it up.

As the Troll inexorably approaches Frizz I take a deep breath and fall back on my test taking (anti stress) strategies to Step Back from the situation, distancing myself from my now growing panic and other emotions so that I can see things objectively even as things seem to slow down. The Troll is approaching Hermione and will be within striking distance in less than a second, Neville seems to have exhausted himself with a basic application of Ripple, turning the Troll's arm to stone via Sunlight. Draco's attempts to distract the Troll are having no effect, he'd need to hit it somewhere with soft tissue for it to notice and its back is bereft of such weak spots. And Ron is managing to slow its pace a bit by having turned the ground to ice and strung up some ropes, causing it to stumble, however it is too close to Hermione, even falling will put it in range of her. I need an ability with enough stopping power to stagger a Troll, one that is both within my abilities and can be cast by a complete novice. Casting about through my memory I locate a sufficient technique and begin casting.

I cup my hands.

It rears its stone fist back, I breathe out and place my hands at my side, "Kaaaa" the first step, bringing out your inner power. Its arm seems to slow further, nearing the apex, I breathe in "Meeee" gathering your power, bringing it to my cupped hands. Its arm reaches the apex, I breathe out "Haaaa" Focusing power, compressing it to a point. The Troll tenses in preparation for a punch, I breathe in "Meeee" shaping the power, giving it form so it moves in a direction instead of everywhere at once. The Troll begins its punch, I breathe out "HAAAAAA" release, the final step. The Kamehameha wave rolls out of my hands, a brilliant blue, it reaches the Troll the moment before the punch would've made contact, caving its chest in and throwing it through the wall and back into the room I had been using. I pant as I look at the hole in the wall, casting about I see Hermione peeking out from the fetal position, that's good, now I jus- why is the floor jump-..?


End file.
